SOIL
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SOIL — Part Four
FOUR The bairns speak trilling voices in the night, harsh echoes dancing, afright of the hoary and weighty squalor of unending sleep. Messages delivered nigh, grasped in sharp talons of ravens, crows, pigeons; whether the cock-crows or refuses to show. May our dreams stay safe; for our sleeps are fraught and the days, so dark, as the sun burrows deep, quaffs the Devil’s draught, As if the accursed swill were as naught but cool, clear water, a gentle man’s drink, atop the Great Mothers’ hill. Ithica (b. 413). Journaled year 442. I After living in the temperate embrace of the…
Vigilant — The Weight of a Torch — Part Three
Deep in the archives, far below the streets of Yed’ol, Kaia poured over an antique journal. Its pages were yellowed with age, the ink beginning to fade. She sat at a desk, old leather-bound volumes piled high on both her flanks. The only illumination, a large five-wicked candle, burning steadily. She quickly flipped through pages, spending no more than a few seconds on each one, her silver eyes darting across the words written therein. “There.” Gregory’s raspy voice spoke inside Kaia’s mind. “That’s what we’re looking for.” Kaia stopped, and ran her fingers over a diagram, covered in arcane symbols…
Sky Over Mountain
Under the mountain, known to the trolls who lived in her caverns as Cairn, winter was held at bay. In the cavernous network worming through Cairn’s rocky heart, the temperature remained constant, no matter the season. For trolls, with hides as thick as an ox’s, the near-freezing atmosphere was favorable to their hardy constitution. Not unlike the caves within Cairn, Hakon, the clan’s chieftain, was neither warm nor cold. He was stern, but fair, and his mood, like the innards of the mountain, seemed held at a constant. Such was his stoicism when he approached Noma, an elderly troll who…